West Indies suffered a major blow to their hopes of avoiding a 3-0 whitewash in next week's third Test at Edgbaston after their bowling spearhead Kemar Roach was ruled out of the remainder of the tour because of a shin injury.

Roach has been their leading wicket-taker in the first two Tests with eight and revived memories of the great fast bowlers of old with the way he roughed up Jonny Bairstow at Trent Bridge last Sunday. But the 23-year-old, who has been carrying a niggling ankle problem throughout the tour, will now return to Barbados for treatment – which will also undermine the West Indies attack for the one-day matches that follow.

He is the second paceman to be sent home in two matches, after the young Trinidadian Shannon Gabriel suffered a back injury on his debut in the first Test at Lord's. Gabriel was replaced in the squad by the unpredictable veteran Tino Best, who would now seem to be competing with Fidel Edwards to take Roach's place at Edgbaston. Best and Edwards are both expected to play in a two-day match at Leicester this weekend.

Sunil Narine, the 24-year-old off-spinner who has made a major impact in the Indian Premier League this year, has been called into the squad as a replacement.

Ottis Gibson, the West Indies coach, said: "Kemar made a lot of improvements, after enduring a tough time last year, and gave us some world-class performances during the series against Australia and here in England. He has been outstanding with the ball for us so far this year and we are all gutted by his departure. We still have an awful lot of cricket to play this year and we did not want to risk losing as valuable a player as Kemar for a long period.

"We believe that a very excited Tino and a fit-again Fidel will be able to provide us with the spark that we will miss from Roach's absence," Gibson added. "We still have an awful lot for which to play in the final Test, and Tino and Fidel can give us the cutting edge to our bowling if they play."

The prospects of Chris Gayle arriving in time to bolster the team's fragile upper order would seem remote, as the former captain will remain in the Caribbean until the weekend at least for his clear-the-air meeting with West Indies Cricket Board officials in St Vincent on Sunday.

"I don't know how that would work," Gayle told a Jamaican television channel. "We would have to meet and then I would have to jump on a plane. I don't know how beneficial that would be for the team to actually be arriving a day before the Test match."

However, Gayle confirmed that he does not expect the "residual issues" that are due to be discussed at the meeting to cause a late rethink over his availability for the one-day series. "It's nothing really to do with the cricket, to be honest with you," he added.

"It's other issues to actually deal with at this particular time which the board needs to iron out. Hopefully I can be clear and have my mind free of all these ongoing issues and play some cricket and have fun."

Gayle's presence in the third Test would provide a much needed boost to ticket sales at Edgbaston, where the 25,000 capacity is much larger than that at Trent Bridge. "It's been proving pretty tough," admitted Warwickshire's chief executive, Colin Povey. "With all the other things going on this summer it was always going to be a tough sell. The Friday and Saturday aren't bad but for the first day on the Thursday we're having to work much harder."